Monday, June 9, 2014

A major national Muslim organization said Wednesday it is asking the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office to cancel a training program by a former FBI agent because it says his message would lead officers to have a biased and distorted view of Islam.

"He's a notorious anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, and if any law enforcement officer walks out of his training and encounters an ordinary Muslim in the course of their duty, they're going to have a completely biased viewpoint of that person," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Washington, D.C.

Hooper was referring to John Guandolo. He is scheduled to hold a two-day training program in Wichita next week hosted by the Sheriff's Office and expected to draw law enforcement officers from across the state, said the sheriff's spokesman, Lt. David Mattingly.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR, brushed off both Geller's ads and the IPT campaigns as the ongoing "Islamophobia industry that seeks to blame Islam for any violence or terrorism anywhere in the world." The goal of such ads, he said, is to "demonize Islam and marginalize American Muslims."

Meanwhile, Hooper said, his group, which will mail anyone a copy of the Quran on request, has been quick to condemn outrages such as the Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria and the death sentence issued in Sudan to a woman who converted to Christianity. Neither outrage, Hooper said, has anything to do with true Islam. "These are acts by extremists who misuse Islam for their own violent ends."